Creating a schedule for any amount of employees is a stressful business. It’s not always easy to make a schedule that works for everyone which can sometimes lead to added stress on your staff which can impact their own well-being.
We spoke to business owners about how they manage to make a schedule that won’t cause added stress for both themselves and their teams. It’s a tricky business but it’s important to consider how a schedule can impact everyone’s well-being to prevent things like burnout.
Ben Blecha of Hero Braces suggests that you should always get the schedule out as early as feasibly possible. “Having the schedule out far enough in advance allows you and your team to be able to create consistency within the workplace. It also helps to do this in case there ends up being a scheduling conflict, or someone has to take some unexpected time off. This allows you enough time to fix the schedule and ensure it works for everyone. You can’t please everyone, but being proactive about the schedule helps to mitigate many conflicts that could cause some issues within the workplace.”
Blecha also says it’s important to get to know your team’s routines and other outside commitments. “Sometimes you have employees who have other jobs, are in school, or have other commitments that require them to only be able to work certain days or hours each week. Getting to know their personal schedules inside and out, makes it much easier to create a schedule that is fair for everyone. It also means fewer issues with scheduling and the less likely it is that you will get last-minute cancellations.”
Sick calls can increase if you aren’t creating a schedule that coincides with other people’s outside commitments, especially if you as a manager were already told about them far enough in advance. Creating a schedule is sometimes always a work in progress which is why working on it with the support and help of your team can make it less of an issue each time you make a schedule.
In terms of increasing efforts to not cause burnout, Anthony Kalka of The Kalka Law Group says you need to consider the impact of having a routine. “If your team is used to a certain schedule, then they plan their whole day and week around that. If you are changing it up all the time or filling spots because you’re short-staffed, you are messing around with your employees’ routines.
You need to give enough warning to your team about any major changes and also ensure you talk with them beforehand. This gives them enough time to make any changes to their own personal schedule which helps to decrease any stress related to these changes.”
It’s also a good idea to keep in mind the changes that are constantly happening within the office and how that might affect your team. “Something else to consider is how things like meetings are affecting your team if you are having them often throughout the day. Meetings cut into productivity and can cause unnecessary stress as they can cause your team to become behind on their own work tasks. Always take into consideration how the time of day and what day of the week you are having these meetings and talk with your staff to find a day and time that works for the majority. This gives them time to plan around it and they are more likely to be on board with these meetings instead of dreading them.”
Jeena Alfredo is a passionate digital marketer at The Business Goals. She is working with other companies to help them manage the relationship with The Business Goals for the publications.
